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Russian battleship RFS Krasny Tovarishch
The Russian battleship RFS ''Krasny Tovarishch'' (Russian: Кра́сный Това́рищ, Red Comrade) is a 59,000 tons RFS Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship of the Russian Navy. She was originally built for the Soviet Navy during World War II, and was the heaviest and most powerful battleship ever built by the Soviet Union when she was completed in 1942 at Khrondshdat naval base, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union. She engaged the Japanese battleship Kii off Gotland, and was hit by two torpedoes from Kii. She was at Khrondshdat naval base for the rest of the war. In the Post-War period, Krasny Tovarishch was modernized and reconstructed as a guided missile battleship. She was during the Cold War flagship of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, and is now flagship of the Russian Baltic Fleet. History Around the start of WW II the Soviet Union tried to renovate its Navy with new construction of battleships and/or battlecruisers built with foreign assistance. They wanted the U.S. to create a battleship design with American-made 18" guns, but the U.S. declined. Germany supplied a half-finished heavy cruiser, but balked at battleship co-operation. The Ansaldo shipbuilding conglomerate of Italy took on the task and started at least one large, 3-turret battleship that invading Axis forces found half-built in the Nikolayev shipyard on the Black Sea in 1941. Speculation of its finished size ranged from 45,000 to 60,000 tons. It appeared to be a Russian version of Littorio with 16" guns. The Axis forces didn't bother to launch or use the hull. In "Grand Fleet", three large Soviet battleships, one in Leningrad and two in Nikolayev, were being made with Italian, French, and American assistance. Heavily gunned, heavily armored and fast, these ships were to bring the Soviet Union up to world standards for battleship construction, after a lapse of some twenty years and various "purges" of talented, but "bourgeois" ship designers. The Soviet battleship Sovetsky Soyuz/Sovietski Soyuz (Soviet Union) was finished in 1940 with French-made 16" guns similar to those on French battleship Alsace, and her sister, the Soviet battleship Sovietskaya Ukraina (Soviet Ukraine) was due out in early 1942. The rapid German overland advance when war started forced the Soyuz and other naval forces to seek other Black Sea ports. The Italian workers in Nikolayev's shipyards mobilized to save the nearly complete Ukraina from escaping by sinking an old freighter across the building basin and capturing the Russian demolition squad before they could act. The Ukraina was completed by the Italians and re-named Il Duce, supposedly over Mussolini's faint-hearted objections. In the North, the big-sister Krasny Tovarishch (Red Comrade) carried the identical superstructure and internal layout except for larger-diameter wells and heavy turrets for the proposed 18" guns. The ship was essentially a Soyuz set into a larger and longer hull that formed extra protection and bunkerage without diminishing speed. The U.S. had balked at sending the 18" guns after Russia carved up Poland and invaded Finland and the Baltic nations. When Germany invaded in 1941, however, assistance to our "friend" could scarcely be denied, and the guns destined and rejected for the USS Constellation (CV-4) were now available. In early 1942 an Allied convoy unloaded the promised 18" guns in Arkangelsk, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union and they made their way to Leningrad, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union to be installed in the otherwise-completed Krasny Tovarisch. Though kept in port most of the time, Tovarishch's big moment came when she challenged the Japanese battleship Kii off Gotland after Japan had brazenly attacked the Soviet Union in defiance of the non-aggression pact the Soviets were abiding by. Each battleship was slinging 18" shells across the sky, but Tovarishch's lookouts and seamanship weren't up to the task of dodging Kii's torpedoes, too. Two underwater explosions, one from a "short" and one from a torpedo, tore a big hole in Tovarishch's side, enough for her to "give the ring back" (break off the engagement). Limping into Khrondshdat naval base, she sat out the rest of the war firing at the encircling Germans until the Russian offensive drove the invaders out of range. Post-war propaganda had her become a fearsome "missile ship", in reality she was reconstructed and modernized as a giant guided missile battleship, to be the flagship of the Soviet Baltic Fleet. She is now the flagship of the Russian Baltic Fleet.